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Review of "One Good Earl Deserves a Lover" by Sarah MacLean

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover is not going to be one of my favorite books. It isn't going on my keeper shelf to be re-read over and over again (good thing, since it is a library book). I'm not going to be tempted to name any pets Pippa or Cross/Jasper. It wasn't that kind of book. That said, it isn't a bad book. In fact, it is better than many of the other books I've read in a long time.

It is the second book in Ms. MacLean's Rule of Scoundrels Series and follows Philippa "Pippa" Marbury, sister of the first book's heroine, and Cross (Earl Harlow), business partner to the first book's hero. Pippa is "odd" because she liked learning and tended to talk about things that other people wouldn't have bothered to even learn about--she knew things like the names of every bone in the human body. She's also about to be married, causing her to panic over what would happen after the wedding. Being the person she is, she decides to read the marriage ceremony in the Book of Common Prayer, which instead of helping only makes her panic more. Why? Because it talks about marrying for lust. The book warns against it, but Pippa is more concerned that there wouldn't be any lust in her marriage and that she wouldn't be able to tempt her husband--she's odd, so of course no one could ever find her attractive, especially since she also wore glasses. She comes up with a plan: she's going to do some research and attempts to make Cross her "research associate," showing up at The Fallen Angel, a gaming hell he and his friends run, and propositioning him. Cross thinks she's insane. No aristocratic woman would ever ask to be ruined and that's just what Pippa wanted. He turns her down, but eventually agreed to help her because he feared that not doing so would cause her to do even dumber things than asking him for help.

I did like the main characters. Pippa, the scientist. Cross, the sinner. They were a fun pairing and it was fun to read about them. However, there were things about each of them that drove me up a wall. Pippa, who is supposed to be a very smart woman, was at times extremely stupid, denying things that were so easy to see that she might as well have been blind. For instance, at one point, she meets with Lavinia, a woman who looks a lot like Cross--they have the same eyes and hair color and they're both taller than most other people at that time--but instead of coming to the conclusion that they were related, she decides that Lavinia was one of his paramours. It is obvious to her that Cross loves Lavinia, but Pippa continually misreads the type of love. It isn't until Lavinia tells her the truth that she is able to change her mind.

Cross was also a bit annoying at times, especially as the end of the book nears. You see, he blames himself for his brother's death and his sister's injury, and because of this, he has decided that he is unworthy of everyone around him, including Pippa. He sees himself as dark and her as light, and even after it is clear that they love each other, he pushes her away because he thinks that he has tainted her with his darkness. She goes out of her way to make him realize how much she loved him and how he was worthy of that love, but he still doesn't want to believe it.

Back to Pippa for a minute. She could be a bit melodramatic and at one point, her POV reminded me of this scene from Dirty Dancing:

[embed]https://youtu.be/0_6ihSrpgvE[/embed]

Despite these flaws, I still rooted for them. There was a point, however, in which I wanted to throw the book against the wall. That was when the most contrived, most predictable plot point showed up--a forced marriage. No, Pippa and Cross were not discovered (well, not by anyone who would force them to marry at any rate). Digger Knight, the owner of a competing Gaming Hell, threatens to ruin Pippa if Cross did not marry his daughter, Meghan. His hands tied, or so he thought, Cross gives in and becomes engaged to the young woman.

Since Knight had tried using Lavinia to get Cross to marry Meghan and he was at least a little aware of what was going on between Cross and Pippa, it was easy to see this coming. If I were a praying type of person, I would have prayed that this wouldn't happen. Of course, things had started to go well between Pippa and Cross, so a new obstacle needed to be thrown in their way. They couldn't just have their happily ever after with 100 pages to go and it was too soon to end the book, so we got a forced engagement with no seeming way to fix it. Obviously, it does get fixed--and by Pippa, but it was enough of a contrivance to sour the book a bit. I would have much preferred a shorter book than one with this plot point in it, but that is not what I got.

It seems like I've been reading Karen Rose novels my entire life. I remember the day I came across Count to Ten in the Duane Reade on Queens Blvd. I'd finished the paperback I brought with me to school that day while sitting in the Dining Hall eating lunch and needed something for the long bus ride home. I almost didn't buy it because it was $9.99 and I hadn't gotten my financial aid money yet, but the cover copy called to me. Not even the 500+ page count could scare me away.

I recently learned that Edge of Darkness is Ms. Rose's 20th book and in a strange way, I feel like a proud mama watching her child cross the stage to get their diploma. I'm just a big ball of happy nostalgia, thinking back to all of the other books I've read by her and hopeful about the ones to come, so befor…

Most readers remember their first, the first book of their particular genre that they read, whether they enjoyed the book or not. I have two firsts--the first romance I ever read was a Harlequin Intrigue written by Amanda Stevens. If you've read my blog before you probably already know this. The first historical romance I read was Mesmerized by Candace Camp, which was also the first book in her Mad Morelands series.

I was a senior in high school when this series began and I remember seeing the paperback version of Mesmerized on the shelf at the Target on Queens Blvd (yes, I spent a lot of time on Queens Blvd as a teenager), and was pulled in by the gorgeous cover. Apparently, that book has had several covers over the last 15 years, but this is the one I remember:

Have you ever seen the description of a book and known immediately that it was going to be awesome and upon reading it were faced with the possibility that it might actually be better than you originally thought? For me, that book was Hacking IT by Kimberly Dean. A female white hat hacker using her skills to uncover a black hat hacker, who has stepped away from his computer and entered the real world? Um, yes, please.

From the Publisher:
Independent software developer Kylie Grant is on top of her game in the world of IT. She has loyal clients, a good reputation, and a prestigious membership in technology giant Afire Industries’ small business accelerator. Things are going well until she stumbles across an innocuous issue with the lighting in the building where she rents space. When she digs into the problem, she discovers some…

I read my first Nora Roberts novel when I was a 16-year-old high school junior. I remember seeing her books in all of the drug stores long before the fateful day on which I decided to actually buy one but had never thought anything of them. From that day on, La Nora became the gold standard--the author all others had to live up to, the one to beat. I remember sitting at my mom's kitchen table with one of her paperbacks and a sheet of paper, marking down which of her books were available at the libraries near me. Her backlog was (and still is) immense and I was going to read them all. While I still haven't read all of her books, I've read a good chunk of them, many of which have a place on my virtual keeper shelf, which is why I was so deeply disappointed in Come Sundown.

I was really excited for this book. I devoured the entire K2 series a couple of years ago, but somehow I missed the first two books of the Aces and Eights series. I'd hoped that I'd be able to jump right into this book without having read the others, and in a way I was able to do so as the main plot had nothing to do with the others. However, I feel that had I known the characters' backgrounds a little bit more, I would have felt more of a connection to them, which would have helped me have a better reading experience.

From the Publisher:Two FBI agents struggle with desire in the shadow of a killer, in the third installment of Aces & Eights.
Nate Gentry has been a rock for his two younger brothers since the day their mom walked out and left them with their abusive father. Now that…